Packages refresh

[seangrate]

(This is from the ideas discussed in the Packages group (@seangrate, @dmaclagan, @wilvalin, and @foschreyer) at the M2@GT 2026 workshop)

This pull request comprises two main changes to the package infrastructure:

1. In the documentation, the order of sections on the landing page for a package (the top-level node of the package) has been revised (see PackageFrontpage.pdf).
2. The options for newPackage have some additions and changes:
   • Date is now LastUpdated to make its purpose clearer (original release date versus date of version release)
   • A new Maintainer option to ensure packages have a designated person in charge of maintenance, especially needed whenever a package's authors are, for instance, no longer in academia.
   • The Maintainer and Authors now have Orcid as an available field which takes in the Orcid as a string
   • The Keywords option has changed meaning
     • Areas replaces the original Keywords intention; e.g., Areas = {"Combinatorics"}
     • Keywords is now intended for more fine-grained identifiers like "Betti numbers" or "toric varieties" (think arXiv keywords)
   • Two classification system options have been added
     • MathematicsSubjectClassification for the AMS Mathematics Subject Classification
     • ComputingClassificationSystem for the ACM Computing Classification System
   • The Abstract option has been added. This is intended for a future feature for better package browsing.

Here is an example using the new options:

newPackage("SamplePackage",
    AuxiliaryFiles => false,
    Version => "1.0",
    LastUpdated => "June 3, 2026",
    Maintainer => {Name => "Sean Grate",
                   Email => "sgrate@iastate.edu",
                   HomePage => "https://seangrate.com",
                   Orcid => "0000-0003-0151-2158"},
    Authors => {{Name => "Sean Grate",
                 Email => "sgrate@iastate.edu",
                 HomePage => "https://seangrate.com",
                 Orcid => "0000-0003-0151-2158"},
                {Name => "Diane Maclagan"},
                {Name => "Kalina Mincheva"},
                {Name => "Frank-Olaf Schreyer"}},
    Headline => "combinatorial algorithms",
    Abstract => "This is some abstract with a sentence or two written. No wonder it so long, but also a bit short.",
    Areas => {"Combinatorics"},
    MathematicsSubjectClassification => {"05B25"},
    ComputingClassificationSystem => {"Mathematics of computing" => {"Discrete mathematics" => {"Combinatorics" => "Combinatorial algorithms"}}},
    Keywords => {"matroids", "combinatorial optimization"},
    HomePage => "https://somewebsite.com",
    PackageImports => {"Complexes"},
    PackageExports => {"Graphs", "Posets"},
    Certification => {
         "journal name" => "The Journal of Software for Algebra and Geometry",
         "journal URI" => "https://msp.org/jsag/",
         "article title" => "SomePackage: a Macaulay2 package",
         "acceptance date" => "04 July 2025",
         "published article URI" => "https://msp.org/jsag/2025/7-2/p03.xhtml",
         "published article DOI" => "10.2140/jsag.2025.7.04",
         "published code URI" => "https://msp.org/jsag/2025/7-2/jsag-v11-n1-x03-SomePackage.m2",
         "release at publication" => "cf37f5a1eefc2fe7e6eef2868718256106805027",
         "version at publication" => "1.0",
         "volume number" => "11",
         "volume URI" => "https://msp.org/jsag/2025/7-2/"
    }
)

All existing packages have had their newPackage header changed to comply with these revisions.

[d-torrance]

A number of conflicts to fix. (Sorry -- like half of them are me updating my email address!)

[seangrate]

I should note: All references in the Macaulay2 documentation and on the wiki for package writing still need to be updated to reflect these changes.

[d-torrance]

There are a few newer packages in development that haven't gotten the changes, e.g:

../../../../../Macaulay2/m2/option.m2:17:26:(1):[67]: error: encountered an unknown key or option: Date
../../../../../Macaulay2/packages/EuclideanDistanceDegree.m2:1:10:(2):[66]: --back trace--

[mahrud]

Removing the key Date would cause all existing packages out there to produce an error when loaded. I'm also leaning against this change in general though because I prefer simple key names, but with clear documentation of what they should contain elsewhere.

[mahrud]

The same for Keywords, actually. Nevermind, you're not removing it so it's not gonna cause errors. I like Areas.

[mahrud]

You probably didn't mean to include this.

[mahrud]

And several files in MergeTeX.

[mahrud]

Instead of adding both MathematicsSubjectClassification and ComputingClassificationSystem, how about adding a unifying SubjectClass key and adding functions like MSC(ZZ,List) and CSS(ZZ,List) or similar? e.g. SubjectClass => {MSC(2020,{"13D02","14M25"}, ACM(...)}.

[dmaclagan]

This is ok if we're leaving MSC as optional. If we want to make it compulsory (which I think is a good idea - this would be a good thing to be able to search by when we have the package table online) then I wouldn't put them on the same footing. Is there a large group of users who would prefer the ACM classification? (this was mentioned in passing in the summary session, but not discussed).